To retiretate, as I did above, I asked "Can I install WP in, say, /blogs and have my various blogs as /blogs/blog1, /blogs/blog2, etc?"

You said, "Sure, just install WP in the folder /blogs" and followed that up with "So if you install WordPress in domain.com/blogs/, then the main site is domain.com/blogs/ and the subsites are domain.com/blogs/site2 and so on."

So I installed WP in domain.com/blogs

It works. I follow the instructions to set up a network. That works. But there's an error in the admin links. They point to wp-admin in domain.com, a subdir that does not exist, and not wp-admin in the domain.com/blogs directory, a subdir that does exists.

So I guess the crossed wires in the understanding occurs here. If you say "you cannot (yet) run WP out of a subdirectory and have Multisite" then how can you suggest that I can run multiple blogs in http://wordpress.org/support/topic/multisite-and-non-root-install?replies=6#post-3095243 by saying "So if you install WordPress in domain.com/blogs/, then the main site is domain.com/blogs/ and the subsites are domain.com/blogs/site2 and so on."

So I guess the ultimate question here is why tell me "the main site is domain.com/blogs/ and the subsites are domain.com/blogs/site2 and so on" if that's not the case and the admin urls in the dashboard don't allow it.

I'm not meaning to be difficult. I'm just trying to understand how there are two contradictory answers to the question.

If you install domain.com/blogs then your main URL will forever be domain.com/blogs

You cannot use domain.com in that setup. There will not be a domain.com/WP-admin folder, ever.

So when you keep saying you're poking at that, I have to come back and say no. You need to go to domain.com/blogs/WP-admin, because you cannot have WP in domain.com/blogs and use that to control domain.com - that is what I mean when I say you can't have it in a subdirectory like you do single site install.

Now, if something is sending you to the domain.com/wp-admin URL then what is that something? You just say there's a link :) there are lots of links.

If you install domain.com/blogs then your main URL will forever be domain.com/blogs

I know that. We discussed that. I don't want anything to be in domain.com and there isn't anything in domain.com. What I said was that there are links that are pointing to /wp-admin in the dashboard instead of /blogs/wp-admin

Now, if something is sending you to the domain.com/wp-admin URL then what is that something? You just say there's a link :) there are lots of links.

Mika, I specifically did mention the links that are pointing incorrectly to domain.com. Look 4 messages up, the one that mentions the festival. I say:

While Network->Visit Site is pointing to example.com/blogs, Network->Edit Site is pointing to:

example.com/wp-admin/network/site-info.php?id=1

Other incorrect URLS on the dashboard strip at the top:

My Sites->Network Admin is pointing to domain.com/wp-admin/network/

Next to that series of links, under the name of my Blog Network, Visit Site points to domain.com/blogs but Edit Site points to domain.com/wp-admin/network/site-info.php?id=1 where it should be pointing to domain.com/blogs/wp-admin/network/site-info.php?id=1

Another issue: If I manually enter the URL domain.com/blogs/wp-admin/network/site-info.php?id=1 it incorrectly says the main site is at:

I hope this clears things up. WordPress is installed in /blogs. I do not want/expect/think anything should be in /, but somewhere/somehow WP is creating links and configurations that point to /.

I don't know where our misunderstanding is coming from. You keeping saying things like "You cannot use domain.com in that setup. There will not be a domain.com/WP-admin folder, ever." I don't expect there to be. It's WP that is pointing to URLs in the server root, and I cannot stress enough that based on the installation, I know/expect that everything should be under /blogs. But it's WP that's creating the wrong links.

While Network->Visit Site is pointing to example.com/blogs, Network->Edit Site is pointing to:

example.com/wp-admin/network/site-info.php?id=1

What's the next step to make it point to example.com/blogs/wp-admin/network/site-info.php?id=1 instead?

Also the My Sites->Network Admin links are all pointing to the domain's root and not /blogs

Okay, please be patient with me :) You have a LOT of text going on and some of the earlier stuff (spread across two posts) was unclear. (Also my apologies, last night I was fresh off a plane.)

To clarify, are you saying that ALL of your Network Admin links point to domain root? Because that indicates you did exactly what I said not to, which is part of why I keep reiterating it. Basically, WP is stupid :) It can't know a place exists unless you tell it ;)

Go into your database and look for the wp_site table. Yours should have domain.com as the domain, and '/blogs/' as the path - does it?

Also this:

$base = '/';

In your wp-config.php is wrong. That too should be $base = '/blogs/';

Again, that's a direct symptom of 'installing in a subfolder, running in root.'

To clarify, are you saying that ALL of your Network Admin links point to domain root?

Yes. The Links under My Sites->Network Admin->Dashboard, Sites, Users Visit Network all point to root.

To the right, my network name points to /blogs. Visit Site points to /blogs, Edit Site points to root.

Go into your database and look for the wp_site table. Yours should have domain.com as the domain, and '/blogs/' as the path - does it?

points to domain.com and /

In your wp-config.php is wrong. That too should be $base = '/blogs/';

The wp-config changes are cut and pasted from what WP said to put in after I activated the network.

Again, that's a direct symptom of 'installing in a subfolder, running in root.'

Not clear on how this happened. After the 1st time I:
- completely nuked WP database, dropped it entirely
- rmdir'd the /blogs subdir
- tar xvfz the latest wordpress
- went to domain.com/blogs/wp-admin/install.php Install finished
- added define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true); to the wp-config and was given the following markup:

(I've done this install so many times, in subfolders and root, I'm very confident saying it can't magically decide it's in another folder unless, after installation, you actively went to the WP Admin -> General Settings, and changed the URLs there.)

1) create the user and database in phpmyadmin
2) add the database login info and secret/salt phrases to wp-config
3) go to install.php (so this is one-click?)
4) Voilà , I have a wordpress site. Add the wp_allow_multisite line, refresh.
5) See the wrong links in site and wrong path in database
6) Continue this thread. :-)

So, I repeat, I only touch the wp-config twice and it's solely for database connect info & salt, followed by the wp_allow_multisite line. That's it.

Is there any sort of unix environment issue? We're on an nginx server on a CentOS OS.

I'm like two weeks into nginx, but I think thats the problem. The conf is telling WP it's really in the main folder. (The .htaccess for Multisite is different than single install, so I believe they're different for nginx too)

I was reading http://wiki.nginx.org/WordPress and it has a different explanation of how to do subfolders, and it has the multisite info, but I know every server's a little different.